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Scientists find earliest evidence of humans outside Africa

Thursday 12 July 2018 - 1:43pm

The latest find of 96 stone tools, mainly flakes made with rudimentary hammers and likely used for cutting meat and other food, was extracted from 17 layers of sediment in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau.

The latest find of 96 stone tools, mainly flakes made with rudimentary hammers and likely used for cutting meat and other food, was extracted from 17 layers of sediment in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau.

The latest find of 96 stone tools, mainly flakes made with rudimentary hammers and likely used for cutting meat and other food, was extracted from 17 layers of sediment in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau.

The latest find of 96 stone tools, mainly flakes made with rudimentary hammers and likely used for cutting meat and other food, was extracted from 17 layers of sediment in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau.

The stone artifacts, which were discovered in Shangchen on a plateau in northern China, are about 270,000 years older than the previous earliest evidence, which consisted of bones and tools from Dmanisi in Georgia.

The discovery includes a variety of different types of stone tools which were constructed for a variety of purposes - with all showing signs of having been used. Most were made of quartzite and quartz rock that probably came from the foothills of the Qinling Mountains, five to 10 km to the south of the dig site.

It remains unclear which species of human relative created the implements.